


Anamnesis

by GloriaMundi



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: 1940s, Alternate Universe - Noir, Amnesia, Community: au_bingo, Drabble Sequence, F/M, Historical, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-25
Updated: 2011-02-25
Packaged: 2017-10-15 22:55:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriaMundi/pseuds/GloriaMundi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anamnesis (ἀνάμνησις "recollection, reminiscence", literally "loss of forgetfulness")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anamnesis

He looks in the rear-view mirror and doesn't recognise the man there, but it must be him: wide grey eyes, a surgical dressing on his temple, bruising along his jaw. He can't see anything on the road behind him.  
... The road. He's driving along a road -- driving on the left of the road, which means something but he can't remember what. Rain pounds on the windscreen, defeats the wipers, makes the whole car into a kettledrum. The whole world is water, wet tarmac, darkness. His headlights make the rain sparkle. Piaf's on the radio. Je ne regrette rien.

* * *

What he'll remember, at last:  
There was a woman, tall and statuesque, in a black evening dress that caught the light of a hundred lamps and sparkled like rain on tarmac. She held a gun, and it looked comfortable and familiar in her hand, an accustomed weight.  
"I told you not to come," she confided, with a small secret smile. "You shouldn't be here." She said his name: on her lips it was exotic, intoxicating.  
"You mustn't do this," he told her, catching her hand in his as she stroked his lapel. "This isn't a dream. This is the only world we have."

* * *

The petrol gauge never quivers, though the muscles in his back and thighs tell him he's been driving for a long time. Hours, at least. Days? There are no signposts on this road, but that's not unusual: all the roadsigns were taken down when the threat of invasion ...  
War. He remembers the war. Had he been a soldier? He doesn't remember fighting. He remembers falling through the dark. He remembers ice-water hitting his naked skin, hard enough to hurt. He remembers somebody keeping him warm, afterwards, but he doesn't even remember whether it was a woman or a man.

There's a red light, which means 'stop'. He lets the car coast to a halt, puts on the handbrake. The engine idles like grumbling thunder beneath the ceaseless battering of the rain.  
Off to his right, there's a single streetlight, and beneath it stands a man. Dark coat, pale skin, dark hair: he's drenched. He's looking at the car: he's walking towards it.  
The man in the car feels as though he's been subjected to an electrical shock. (Interesting: he knows how that feels.) He _knows_ the man out there in the rain. The man who's opening the car door.

"Eames," says the man, getting into the car beside him. The rain is incredibly louder while the door's open, drowning out _Tu es partout_ ; the slam of the door feels like peace.  
"Eames," says the man behind the wheel, letting his mouth linger on the consonants. "Is that you, or me?"  
"Shit," says his passenger. "They told me you were bad, but ... You're Eames, okay?" His voice is light, American, familiar. "I'm Arthur."  
"Okay," says Eames. "Hello, Arthur."  
"Hello," says Arthur. He gestures up at the traffic light, which is abruptly green. "We can go."  
"Where are we going?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Eames can see Arthur checking him out. The radio's playing another song about love. He knows the song, but not in the same way that he knows Arthur. He breathes steadily, watches the straight empty road, casts around in his mind for something that'll tell him who he is.  
Arthur wouldn't answer his question. "I'll tell you later," he said. "Just keep driving. We mustn't stop: we have to cross the border before dawn."  
"Which border?" Eames wants to ask, but he's embarrassed by the ocean of his ignorance.  
Arthur lights a cigarette.

"Give me some of that," says Eames.  
"You quit."  
"I unquit," says Eames, and Arthur chuckles, and hands him the cigarette. It's warm and damp from Arthur's mouth, and the smoke makes Eames instantly dizzy, sick, agitated. He doesn't let any of this show.  
"Arthur," he says, while Arthur busies himself with lighting another cigarette. "You have to tell me what's going on."  
"You killed somebody," says Arthur, winding down the window just enough to let smoke spiral out into the night. The rain's as loud as a waterfall, and Arthur raises his voice. "I'm here to get you out."

* * *

What he's lost, for now:  
The coolness of Mal's lips against his cheek.  
The thunder of a gunshot, deafeningly close.  
The ruby ooze of blood on the waxed wooden floor.  
The silence that filled the room; the roundness of shouting mouths that made no sound.  
The insistent pull of hands on his shoulders, turning him, leading him outside, taking his gun and tossing it over the balustrade into the river.  
The flickering candle-flame that he forced himself to focus on while the doctor stitched him up.  
The burn of whisky. The tang of fear. The taste of Arthur's mouth. (But _that_ can be the start of something new.)

-end-


End file.
